New collegiate baseball bats draw mixed reviews

Although the new bats introduced to college baseball a couple of years ago for safety reasons are unpopular, Mississippi State coach John Cohen, left, doesn't see the NCAA going back to wooden bats. (Associated Press/Steve Cannon)

STARKVILLE -- The reviews are in for the new bats in college baseball, and they're not all positive.

The NCAA Baseball Research Panel recommended the new BBCOR formula for colleges after studying an increase in offensive statistical performance in Division I in recent years.

The goal of the panel was to institute a better formula to make sure non-wood bats perform like wood bats. In the fall of 2010, the NCAA laid out the BBCOR bat regulation for college baseball.

The Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State's School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering conducted performance testing on model bats by Easton, DeMarini, Louisville Slugger, and Nike to certify each met the NCAA-legislated standard worthy of the "BBCOR certified .50" deal.

Testing involves the firing of a 145-gram NCAA baseball out of a cannon at a target six inches below the tip of the barrel on a bat swung at 136 mph from a pivot arm. Speed gates take readings to determine the BBCOR, the ratio measuring the force, or "pop", of the bat on the ball in the one millisecond of contact by comparing the ball's inbound velocity (the pitch) to the rebound velocity (the contact).

Last season was the first times college teams used non-wood bats that are designed to perform like wood bats. In the past two seasons, offense has decreased each year in nearly every statistical category. Division I batting average, scoring, and home runs per game in 2011 resemble the wood-bat 1970s more than recent years. This season, Trey Porter and Wes Rea led Mississippi State University with five home runs.

"We're in a different era of college baseball," MSU coach John Cohen said. "Two years ago, with our ballpark being as big as it is, our staff started diligently working on a plan to work in this new system of baseball. The way you do that is simple, get as many quality arms as you can and win with pitching and defense."

Division I college teams in 2011 averaged 5.58 runs per game. That number is expected to drop again this season. The offensive production is well off the record 7.12 runs per game in 1998, and was below six per game for the first time since 1977 (5.83), which was just the fourth season of the aluminum bat in college baseball.

Teams hit home runs at an average of .52 per game in 2011 compared to 1.06 in 1998 (the peak year for that category). Those statistics resemble wood-bat days, too (.42 in the last year of wood in 1973, and .49, .50 and .55 in the first three years of aluminum).

Tim Weiser, deputy commissioner at the Big 12 Conference and former chair of the Division I Baseball Committee, said people who question the change may tend to be younger coaches who haven't experienced college baseball with anything other than aluminum or composite bats.

"That's not to say one version is better than the other," Weiser said. "But these new bat standards have brought the game back to its original style of play. It has put a premium back on strategy, pitching, and defense, and not on the No. 9 hitter being able to hit the ball 400 feet just like the No. 4 hitter can. That's what a lot of the positive feedback I'm hearing is centered on."

Batting average in 2011 was .282, the lowest since 1976. Earned run average, on the other hand, was its best (4.70) since 1980 (4.59). MSU had its second-lowest team batting average (.251) since the institution of wood bats. Inexperience, Brent Brownlee was MSU's only consistent senior starter, and the players' inability to adapt to the new feel of the college bats contributed to the lack of production.

"I hate the new college bats because I don't think it's a true reward for squaring up a ball like you're supposed to," MSU sophomore outfielder Hunter Renfroe said. "I'm not hitting as well as I'd like this season, and I'm not using the bat as a crutch, but I've had what seems like a ton of balls right off the barrel be warning track fly outs this year. I go back to the dugout thinking, 'Well, I can't do any better than that.' "

Last summer, Renfroe, a 31st-round draft pick by the Boston Red Sox out of Copiah Academy two years ago, earned All-America honors while playing with the Bethesda (Md.) Big Train in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League, a wood-bat league. Renfroe hit .305 and had a club-record and league-best eight home runs to help Bethesda to its third straight CRCBL title. Renfroe hit .252 and had four home runs and 25 RBIs (third on team) in 61 games this season.

"It takes some of the guesswork out of recruiting in college baseball," Major League Baseball regional scout Art Gardner told The Associated Press. "You used to go to a game and it seemed like every team's lineup had six guys with 10-plus homers."

Renfroe counters that scouting analysis by saying he feels the wood he used the past two summer seasons is a better product than what he's using in college.

"I've seen our coaches actually cut one of these bats down the barrel and we found crushable foam inside there and I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' " Renfroe said. "I know they're looking to produce safer bats, but what they've given us are dead bats."

Players and coaches believe the NCAA's bat legislation will change offensive strategies, promote more bunting and stolen bases, and more first-to-third sprinting. The rise in that style of play could affect recruiting and force coaches to go after faster contact hitters more than brawny, thick-legged sluggers.

"We're looking for a multi-dimensional athlete every time we scout and evaluate positional players we're considering bringing in to our program," Cohen said. "In our ballpark you have to be able to run, bunt, and pressure the defense that way."

Dr. Alan Nathan was a member of the NCAA Baseball Research Panel, a group of scientists that advises the NCAA on issues regarding bat performance. Nathan led the group to get the NCAA to go to the new BBCOR bats.

"In the nearly 40 years since they were first introduced, (metal bats) had evolved into superb hitting instruments that, left unregulated, could significantly outperform wood bats," Nathan said. "More importantly, they had the potential of upsetting the delicate balance between pitcher and batter that is at the heart of the game."

College players and coaches don't question something had to be done with the football-like scores that were being posted as early as three years ago. However, they do question the technology in the new bats.

"It feels like we're taking nothing but a metal pole with a handle up there now and there's no technology involved in these bats," MSU first baseman Wes Rea said. "I'm a big guy (Rea weighs 290 pounds), and I should know when I hit a ball that has a chance to leave the ballpark. I have no idea what the result is when I hit a ball with these bats."

Rea, who was Renfroe's roommate this season, said he sees a day in the near future when the NCAA will consider going back to wood bats.

"I wish I could go up there with a wood bat because I feel like I'd hit better, and I just think a wood bat would be a truer result than when I make contact this season," Rea said.

Cohen isn't as sure the NCAA will approve wood bats because of complications that could arise between the haves and have nots across the country.

"I worry about the quality of wood that each school would be receiving if we were to get to that point," Cohen said. "Having coached at every level of college baseball, I just really have doubts to believe an SEC program with deep pockets is going to get the same quality of wood bat products that a mid- or low-major program would be able to get its hands on."